


Takes One to Know One

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Blood and Water [11]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 00:08:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8868394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Multiverse, Any, You're just a lost boy, with your head up in the clouds / You're just a lost boy, never keep your feet on the ground (Kelsea Ballerini)"Post 5x01, Evan is back on Earth recuperating after his leg was broken. Vala talks to him.





	

“You’re just like me, aren’t you?”  
  
Evan looked up, blinked. He’d been sitting at his usual corner table in the commissary, doodling more on his napkin than picking at his food. He needed to eat it soon, or else Dr. Lam would get after him, and she was terrifying when she wanted to be. Evan suspected she’d inherited it from General Landry. He knew she wouldn’t appreciate the comparison.  
  
“Pardon?”  
  
Vala Mal Doran, SG-1’s famed alien femme fatale, was standing beside his table.  
  
She sat down opposite him and rested her chin in her hands, smiling at him. “You’re like me. Not really a soldier.” She glanced pointedly down at his napkin, where he’d doodled an Ancient battle cruiser.  
  
“What makes you say that?”  
  
“I’ve seen you, Major, as you hobble around base, looking all sad and pathetic on your crutches. You have everyone fooled, with your lost-boy blue eyes and adorable dimples, your officer efficiency and your educated cleverness.” Vala swung her legs absently.  
  
Evan hadn’t realized she was so short.  
  
“You seem like a boy with your head in the clouds most of the time, thinking and puzzling and figuring. Drawing.” Vala reached out and snagged his cup of jello, and he didn’t protest. “You have everyone fooled. Everyone but me.”  
  
Evan gazed at her, forcing himself to keep his breathing calm and measured. He’d heard Vala was an irritating, flighty creature, good with a con, a former Goa’uld host turned con artist. She was sharp, had the potential to be incredibly dangerous. “Well, then, Miss Mal Doran, you seem to have me all figured out. What am I, really?”  
  
Vala smiled and leaned in, pleased. “Take one to know one, Major Lorne. You’re a con.”  
  
He blinked. “Excuse me?”  
  
“You seem so natural at it, so effortless,” Vala continued. “The right comment here, the perfectly-timed smiled there, and you have the world at your fingertips, and all the while the people around you don’t realize that you got more than you gave in every bargain.” She spooned up another mouthful of jello. “Some people are naturals, such as myself -”  
  
“I hear it runs in the family,” Evan said, the barb deliberate and pointed, though he kept his tone as mild and polite as ever.  
  
Vala narrowed her eyes at him sharply. “And I hear no one knows anything about your family.”  
  
“Mom was an art teacher, dad died when I was a kid.” Evan spun the napkin around so she could see. “I take after my mom anyway.”  
  
“Like I said, you’re pretty good, pretty practiced. Takes one to know one, Major.” Vala pursed her lips over her spoon, sucked off the jello with a slow, sensual motion.  
  
Evan was unmoved.  
  
“Don’t worry, though, I’m not going to out you.” Vala reached out and flicked his napkin aside to the one underneath where he’d drawn, unthinking, John. Vulnerable and half naked in bed, asleep. “We cons have to stick together, right? I just thought I’d let you know, you’re not alone.”  
  
Evan reached for his crutches. “I’ll have you know, Miss Mal Doran, that my feet are firmly on the ground. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some work to do.”  
  
Vala caught his wrist as he reached for his tray. “No, Major Lorne. People like you and me, our feet are never on the ground, because we always have to be ready to run.”  
  
“My leg heals up in six weeks,” he said, “and then I can return to Atlantis, from which place, I assure you, I have no desire to run.”  
  
Vala tapped his drawing. “So long as he’s there?”  
  
Evan glanced across the cafeteria to where Dr. Jackson was having an intense debate with Dr. Lee.  
  
“And you’ll stay, so long as _he’s_ here?”  
  
Vala shrugged and attempted to look nonchalant, sucked another morsel of jello off her spoon.  
  
“As you said, takes one to know one.” Evan scooped up his tray with one hand and arranged his crutches with the other.  
  
“Don’t you need this?” Vala waggled the napkin with the battle cruiser drawing on it, but Evan knew she meant the other.  
  
“No, thanks. My head in the cloud is all I need.” Evan carried his tray to the return window and headed for the little closet known as the logistics office.  
  
Soon he’d be back on Atlantis, with John. Soon.


End file.
